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A Lurker's History of Paradox and the Paradox Community *
by Stacy Rowley

[Editor's Note: All the graphics in this article (except the two icons) are links to a larger version of the same image. Placing your mouse pointer over the graphic will show popup and status bar info about what the photograph is. The larger images open in the same smaller dialog window, so you might wish to leave that window open while reading the article.]


The Borland-to-Corel Windows Days: the People (the Community)

The CompuServe forums gradually died out, as they did in many technical areas, as web newsgroups grew. Some people moved on to other things, but a core group continued and was augmented by a growing number of people newly active in the community. A welcome and vital contributor to the Paradox newsgroups was Dan Alder from Corel. Dan joined Corel in 1997 in Paradox technical support, then joined Quality Assurance on Paradox 9 releases for a short while before becoming part of the product management team where he is now Program Manager for Paradox and CorelCENTRAL. Dan has looked in regularly on the newsgroup, asked repeatedly for inputs, and responded well and timely within the resources he has available.

Paul Cronk worked in Paradox development, and has contributed to the newsgroup since leaving Corel. Liz Woodhouse (a.k.a. Liz, the Goddess of Paradox, as folks in the newsgroup dubbed her) has demonstrated a wonderful ability to respond to newsgroup questions. She walks in the questioner's shoes, words responses in a way that it is virtually impossible to offend and very likely to please, and offers sound advice. And she does it every time and responds on most questions. Tony McGuire came upon the abilities "buried" in Paradox to work with the web (pages, Corel Web Server (CWS), and the CWS Control ocx), mastered them, became a vocal and enthusiastic proponent for them, and has pointed everyone to take this advantage and grow Paradox use. Woodhouse and McGuire determined the need for the non-commercial web site, ParadoxCommunity.com, and jumped in to get it moving.

Mike Irwin handles the FAQs and chimes in with answers still, as do other "oldies" Brian Bushay, Lance Leonard, Steve Caple, John Moore, and Bertil Isberg.
Bertil Isberg Isberg started, many versions ago, to keep a bug list and continues to this day. Dennis Santoro has done a fine job, particular in the last couple of years, in tenaciously answering most every question that comes along, staying with it until the need is addressed. Other people active for some time are Vladimir Menkin, Rick Kelly, Pascal Hutton, and Larry DiGiovanni. Some of these people also have web sites with a focus on Paradox.

Paradox SIGs are few, but computer groups in general are less of a factor. The news groups and web sites are alive and growing, and product add-ins have appeared again.


Next:
The Borland-to-Corel Windows Days: the People (the product add-ins)


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